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- September
2019
Smart green VCs you should know
There are many smart green VCs in Europe and the US that back startups in energy, mobility, buildings, cities, materials, food and circular economy to create impact as well as environmental, financial and strategic returns for their fund investors (LPs). In the VC food chain, early stage investors prefer to invest, at lower valuations and higher risk, in the Seed, Series A and Series B financing rounds of young startups working on product market fit and traction (users, customers, revenues). On the other hand, late stage VCs like shorter holding periods and time-to-exit and, consequently, advanced startups with more than €5M revenues, experienced management teams and fast growth. The existence of KPIs, ideally going up over time, makes the life of every investor easier. Facing climate change, technology revolution and global competition, the majority of corporates have adopted corporate venturing and open innovation strategies in order to invest in and do business with startups. The result are different investment strategies and sometimes competing portfolios that startups should know before pitching. Let’s co-invest and meet at Ecosummit Berlin.
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- October
2013
Jan Michael Hess opens Ecosummit London 2013
Ecosummit TV: Jan Michael Hess opens Ecosummit London 2013. Our 6th cleantech conference took place on 15-16 October at the Crystal, the urban sustainability HQ of Siemens in the Docklands. 150 participants came together to discuss smart green cities and to pitch new solutions and investment opportunities. The Crystal is the perfect location for Ecosummit London. Moreover, the LEED Platinum building is a role model for other corporates that want to co-invent the urban future and invest in a long-term technology showcase and marketing tool. Our highlight was the Ecomobilité Ventures Flinc deal announced at ECO13 London. After the NRW Bank O-Flexx investment, this is already the second deal facilitated by Ecosummit.
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- May
2013
Mobility 2.0 – E-volo, Carzapp, Flinc and Innovative Mobility discuss how to build profitable startups
Ecosummit TV: First the bad news: after burning $850M in 6 years Better Place files for bankruptcy. That’s not what you call a lean startup. The electric mobility operator had to accept that car makers don’t support a global startup standard for switchable batteries. Now the good news: peer-to-peer ride sharing startup Lyft raises $60M for global expansion from Andreessen Horowitz. To fight off the professional taxi and limo driver lobby, Lyft drivers get donations rather than payments from their riders. But VCs love transactions whatever they are called, especially if they smell like Airbnb on the road. Here in Europe, we eat humble pie. At ECO12 Düsseldorf, Fabienne Herlaut (Ecomobilité Ventures) discusses profitability with Alexander Zosel (E-volo), Oliver Lünstedt (Carzapp), Klaus Dibbern (Flinc) and Thomas delos Santos (Innovative Mobility). Some inspiration from the US may help.
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- October
2012
Klaus Dibbern pitches Flinc – Europe’s hottest ride sharing startup
Ecosummit TV: Klaus Dibbern pitches Flinc, the famous realtime ride sharing startup. Flinc is integrated with several navigation systems and supports iPhone and Android. The German cleantech startup has got over 100.000 users and goes international now. They have a B2B and B2C business model based on transaction fees, subscriptions and affiliate marketing. We believe Flinc is one of the hottest sustainable social mobility startups in Europe.
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- February
2012
3 Smart Green Startups from Germany Poised to Conquer the Global Market
As a warmup for ECO12, I would like to present 3 smart green startups from Germany that are in a unique position to be successful on the global Cleantech market. They have unique technology, achieved major milestones and look for strategic investors, partners and clients to enter new markets and grow faster. Let’s take a closer look at SolarFuel (Power to Gas), Heliatek (Organic Photovoltaics) and Flinc (Realtime Ride Sharing). All 3 startups are nominated for the ECO12 Award and join Ecosummit 2012 on 22-23 March in Berlin.
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- January
2012
Smart Green Dealflow: myTaxi, Comuto, Younicos, Solarkiosk, Smartblue and FFK
Taxi 2.0: myTaxi, a very useful mobility service of Intelligent Apps, today raised €10M from car2go (Daimler), T-Venture (Deutsche Telekom), Xing Founder Lars Hinrichs (Cinco Capital, Hackfwd) and KfW. myTaxi is the taxi centre for the Mobile Economy and the app is available for iPhone and Android. Interestingly, Robert Henrich, CEO of car2go, believes that “car2go and myTaxi do not compete but complement each other.” In fact, I partly disagree as one way car sharing actually enables short trips from A to B leaving the car behind, the same way taxis do.
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- December
2011
Ecosummit Lounge TV featuring Flinc, Nachbarschaftsauto, Ubitricity, Airbase and Changers
This Ecosummit TV episode was recorded at our second Ecosummit Lounge Berlin on 6 December 2011 at InnoZ, Berlin’s exciting epicentre for electric mobility and smart green city. InnoZ is located on the Euref Campus which aims at developing the smart green model city of the future. We enjoyed a high-voltage evening of intense Smart Green Business Networking with 5 smart green startup pitches, Ursprung, finger food and all that Jazz. The startups presenting were Flinc, Nachbarschaftsauto, Ubitricity, Airbase and Changers.
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- November
2011
Ecosummit Lounge Berlin 6 December 2011
Ecosummit and InnoZ, Berlin’s exciting epicentre for electric mobility and smart green city, joined forces to invite you to a high-voltage evening of intense Smart Green Business Networking. Our second Ecosummit Lounge Berlin takes place on 6 December 2011 and is co-hosted by InnoZ’s Intelligent City Salon. From 18:00-23:00, we will enjoy 5 smart green startup pitches, Ursprung, finger food and all that Jazz. The Ecosummit Lounge is free – our Santa Claus present – but invitation-only. Please ping us to request your personal invitation code.
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- September
2011
Weniger Autos ist mehr – Intelligent in die automobile Zukunft
Mein Gastbeitrag für den Daimler Blog vom 06.09.11: Reduce to the max, finde ich, ist auch heute noch ein gutes Beispiel visionärer Kreativität, gerade weil dieser Werbeslogan bereits 1997 von Smart erfunden wurde. In meiner Vision ist die Mobilität der Zukunft nachhaltig und sozial, denn immer mehr Kunden konsumieren ökologisch und ökonomisch zugleich. Sozial ist, wenn wir Autos gemeinsam effizienter nutzen. Nachhaltigkeit verpflichtet uns, unsere Autos mit erneuerbarer Energie anzutreiben. Das englische Zauberwort dafür ist Sustainable Social Mobility und beschreibt einen intelligenten Weg in die automobile Zukunft.
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- April
2011
Ecosummit TV – ECO11 – Klaus Dibbern – Flinc – Ride Sharing
At ECO11, Klaus Dibbern, CEO of Flinc, pitched his dynamic ride sharing startup to investors and was interviewed by our Ecosummit TV moderator Ane Mari Aakernes. Flinc matches people that want to join the social mobility network to share rides to make money (driver) or save money (passenger). If you share rides in shared cars including taxis then we like to call it Sustainable Social Mobility. That’s the future of mobility. Flinc already has €1.2M funding and looks for a new funding round of approximately €1M. Klaus agreed to share his Flinc slides as PDF.
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- April
2011
Ecosummit TV – ECO11 – Young Future Mobility Leaders – Panel
At Ecosummit 2011, Jan Michael Hess (Ecosummit) moderated the panel Young Future Mobility Leaders with (from the left) Konrad Erzberger (Tamyca), Michael Kuhn (car2gether, Daimler Business Innovation), Beres Seelbach (Lautlos), Klaus Dibbern (Flinc) and Knut Hechtfischer (Ubitricity). We all agreed that the Sharing Economy will change the automotive industry.
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- December
2010
Sustainable Social Mobility with Car and Ride Sharing
Based in Spain’s Basque country, Hiriko is the first company to build the electric City Car developed by MIT’s Medialab. Hiriko sounds Japanese but it is in fact a mix of Basque and Spanish: hiri = urban, ko = short for coche (car). Hiriko’s networked urban cars are designed to be used only as shared cars. Imagine a future where you can take any car when you leave your home or office. Imagine a future where all shared cars are electric. That’s where we have to be.
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